est fides_"; but, if the playwright was young and inexperienced, we can
hardly wonder that his strength failed him at this supreme moment.
Surely the wonder should rather be that we find so many noble passages
throughout this anonymous play. Who the writer may have been I dare not
conjecture. In his fine rhetorical power he resembles Chapman; but he
had a far truer dramatic gift than that great but chaotic writer. He is
never tiresome as Chapman is, who, when he has said a fine thing, seems
often to set himself to undo the effect. His gorgeous imagination and
his daring remind us of Marlowe; the leave-taking of Petronius is
certainly worthy of Marlowe. He is like Marlowe, too, in another
way,--he has no comic power and (wiser, in this respect, than Ford) is
aware of his deficiency. We find in _Nero_ none of those touches of
swift subtle pathos that dazzle us in the _Duchess of Malfy_; but we
find strokes of sarcasm no less keen and trenchant. Sometimes in the
ring of the verse and in turns of expression, we seem to catch
Shakespearian echoes; as here--

"Staid men suspect their wisedome or their faith,
To whom our counsels we have not reveald;
And while (our party seeking to disgrace)
They traitors call us, each man treason praiseth
_And hateth faith, when Piso is a traitor_." (iv. i);

or here--

"'Cause you were lovely therefore did I love:
O, if to Love you anger you so much,
You should not have such cheekes nor lips to touch:
You should not have your snow nor curral spy'd;--
_If you but look on us, in vain you chide: